The first thing to realize with any flowering house plant is that these need a lot more light than foliage house plants will get by on. Otherwise the main thing with an epiphytic bromeliad such as yours is to keep the spaces at the bases of the leaves filled with suitable water at all times, without fail - the roots of these plants are mostly just a means to grip branches or rocks in the wild, don't even need to be in soil. So although your specimen is apparently doing well enough so far it might be desirable to pop it out of that bigger pot filled with what looks to consist at least partly of natural soil out of the ground, go back to growing it only in its original container. Or if it seems needed then move it on now to a single bigger pot, one that is not buried inside another pot filled with soil. Using instead a coarse potting mix, one that provides a lot of aeration.

With another flower spike coming on now presumably the original one has faded because its time is past. If as the new tuft(s) develops and flowers later the older foliage collapses into a heap this is usual for these plants. In nature the rootstock slowly creeps across the supporting branch or other surface, producing and discarding a whole series of leaf rosettes and flower spikes, year after year.

So that it is possible that when your previous plant "died" it was just doing this. However if it was in fact demonstrating its natural cycle it should have had plenty of new growth coming on at the same time that the original clump shriveled.

If this picture is better. It's still in the original small pot I bought it in w/ potting medium the store used. Been to nervous to repot to be quite honest. But seemseems to me it maybe very necessary As there are three in one pot I believe 2 you can see the smaller spike and then in middle just left there is a 3rd no spike yet. I need to research on if you can propagate bromeliads or not and just how to do it. I could use advice ill also include another picture of example. Should I just replant it back in original container, I have few other containers going up in size. Would it survive & thrive in a pot 1size up? Advice please Thanks and appreciate replies. The top pic should be on bottom. For my question those are 3 pots I have or the same one its in. ????

Thanks for suggestions really appreciate it. Was wondering if you had an opinion on weather it was best to just repot it back in same pot, or since it has few growing all together could i use one of the bigger sized pots to plant my flower in?

At some point you will have to use a pot that has enough room for the new leaf rosettes (tufts) to get as big or bigger than the original. And eventually the whole will probably start getting to be more of a big hummock than you want to have all in one pot.

Thank you very much all your advice has really helped. I'll post an update soon!

Did you get flowers on yours? All I see is bracts. Here's a photo of mine with flowers

The flowers only last a couple of days, but it puts out a lot of them in succession. I keep mine outdoors all year in a very shady spot, but it does get a small amount of direct sun and a lot of indirect light.

These were some of the pups i removed from mine last year when i transplanted it.I took off 12 of them,sold 8,kept 3 and gave one to a niece.This isn't a very good picture,can't find the one i'm looking for,showing it full of blooms,but i'll keep looking.This was mine after division,that hole is where i pulled out a big old weed.